If passed, the new privacy bill will muzzle the media by putting editorial decisions in the hands of judges. Is this the death knell for investigative journalism, asks John Burns

Last Wednesday, Bertie Ahern got wind that the press was onto him. Details of payments he had received from wealthy businessmen in 1993, when he was minister for finance, were to be published in The Irish Times the following morning.

Within minutes the taoiseach had mobilised his legal team. That afternoon they appeared in the High Court and made an application under Section 8 of the Privacy Act 2006 for an injunction to stop the newspaper from publishing any of his financial details.

The judge summoned the newspaper. What was their defence to the taoiseach’s action, he demanded. Lawyers for The Irish Times, citing Section 5 of the Privacy Act, said its journalists had been engaged in “an act of news gathering”.

Very well, said the judge, but jump the four hurdles set out in that section of the act. Prove that any disclosure of material you have about Ahern